This invention relates to electric broilers and particularly to broilers which produce the broiling effects associated with charcoal cooking and to electric heaters especially adapted therefor.
Charcoal broiling is a popular form of cookery commonly identified by the flaring produced when the melting fats are ignited, by the charred appearance of the fats such as on the edge of a beef steak, and by the flavors associated therewith. Gas ovens have also been employed to achieve a similar effect. In electric broilers, hairpin heaters have been commonly used to provide the heating source for broiling; an assemblage of such heater units has been used as the cooking surface or grate. These heaters employ metallic tubes (e.g., steel) with high resistance wire coiled therein for the heating source. Customarily, such broilers operate at about 750.degree. F. and use slightly less than 1,000 watts per unit. Such broilers have been found to be undesirable in the cooked product in that meats are burned; i.e., the direct contact with the high temperature heating surface produces a heavy carmelization and a bitter taste associated therewith. Moreover, such heaters, though operating within the standard rating for such heaters tend to deteriorate rapidly because of the contaminants produced by the melted fats at the relatively high temperatures. Another form of electric broiler employs units built with hairpin heaters mounted under and in contact with iron plates, which are heated to relatively high temperatures, e.g., 1000.degree. F., to broil the meats placed on the grates. Though the heaters are clamped in contact with the iron plates, they must still be operated at very high temperatures (e.g., 1200.degree. to 1500.degree. F.). They consume the order of 3000 watts of electrical energy. At those high temperatures, the hairpin heaters are operating above their standard rating and in addition are subjected to grease spattered beneath the plates. As a consequence, it is found that such heaters deteriorate rapidly in a matter of weeks or months.
High energy electric heaters also have other applications in industrial heating.